Is The Witcher 3’s Free DLC Really That Important?

Buffalo chicken is pretty good. You know what else is pretty good? The Witcher 3. What do these two things have in common? Well, when you order buffalo chicken, you typically get a free cup of ranch dressing to dip it in to take some of the sting from the spicy buffalo sauce away. And similar to that (but also not at all) when you buy the Witcher 3, you get some free DLC to take the sting out of paying full price for the game.

In all seriousness though, the Witcher 3 is a fantastic game, a massive game, beautifully crafted and absurdly detailed to be well worth the price of admission. But CD Projekt Red, the brilliant devils, attempted to sweeten the deal by adding in some additional free content at no extra charge. But what is this content worth to the player? How much value does it really add to an already massive experience? And how does it compare to other DLCs that actually require a bit more dosh from your wallet? Ostensibly, something that’s free wouldn’t likely add as much worthy content as something that requires payment, right? It seems reasonable to think that, given previous experience of game content that’s been free, such as the countless, painfully average clothing DLC packs for just about any game you can think of released since 2008.

Honestly, the Witcher 3 DLC doesn’t really do much towards making free DLC look that much more appealing. It’s certainly welcome, but you’re not missing out on anything major if you decide you don’t need it. A few of the earliest DLCs for the Witcher 3 included an alternate character costume, some additional hairstyles for Geralt himself, and horse armour. But it’s FREE horse armour, so there’s no reason to be feeling PTSD. The far more interesting DLC packs come in the form of additional quests for the game, but honestly they don’t add that much more to the experience you don’t already get in the game. The quests are more or less what you can already experience in the base title, adding maybe between 15-30 minutes. But…but they’re free.

This has been quite frustrating for me personally. Every piece of DLC is entirely optional and inconsequential. I don’t know anyone that was shouting with glee at the thought of giving three of the main female characters alternate outfits. No one needs that to enhance the experience, and if they do, it’s for superficial reasons at best. My purpose for this article was to underline why the Witcher 3’s no-charge DLC was important for the industry, but thinking about it, is it important? I mean, of course it is, as an example of how to treat your player base with gratitude, by giving them more of what they want without forcing them to dig out their wallets. But, is this really the best example? Each piece of content amounts to little more than what modders could also produce for free, and likely more substantial.

There’s also the comparison of DLC that you do have to pay for, and we’ve all likely been guilty of buying a few of these. Why wouldn’t we for our favorite games? Even The Witcher 3 itself had its own paid DLC that added entire new sections of the world and story. The free content just doesn’t hold a candle to the much larger charged content, such as Blood and Wine, which by itself could be well over 20 hours of gameplay in a very large new map to explore. For a third of the price of the main game, you get more of the Witcher 3 for at least another half the time it took to beat the main campaign. You can even compare it to Fallout 4’s recent endeavours, with Far Harbour and Nuka World now part of its Season Pass, adding another potential twenty hours, and that’s not including the DLC content that added new gameplay mechanics altogether.

As much as I do love The Witcher 3, I don’t find myself singing its praises for some free content that I may never bother using. Is it a welcome addition? Certainly, no one in their right mind would turn down free content, but did it really enrich the experience enough for me to use it as an example of free DLC done right? Not likely, though to be fair there aren’t many other options in this regard either.

It’s likely difficult for large game companies to justify pouring a few more man hours into creating something they will just release for free, even with the possibility that it will bring a few new players to buy their main game. It could be argued that the developers could have just put the content in the game in the first place, and that’s the thing isn’t it? They ostensibly wanted some gold stars from the community by holding out on a few quest lines and alternate armour and giving it to them for free later as if they were only doing it out of the good of their hearts, and I’m not trying to knock them down. CD Projekt Red have been phenomenal with the community, and they likely did think they were doing everyone another favour by releasing this content, but the gaming community isn’t blind. They know good content when they see it, and unfortunately, compared to the base Witcher experience, the content could have obviously been so much more rewarding.

But free is free, right? And at the end of the day, there’s hardly much reason to whine about its quality if you can just ignore it’s even there. It is an important gesture to your customer base to give them more of what they want without holding out your hand already full of their money. It’s incentive to keep the player coming back, and hopefully keep the brand in mind for when the next title comes out. But I think it’s important for developers and publishers to consider just how much real substance their free downloadable content will add.

Would it really be worth pulling time and resources away from making the base experience better just to focus on adding some freebies down the line? I’m not necessarily asking for developers to tire themselves making a whole expansion only to not be paid, but rather asking them to really consider the effort versus the potential reward. If it’s just another single 15 minute quest line, maybe just put it in the main experience from the start. Or if it must be added in later for the sake of lengthening the player base, make sure that 15 minutes is really unique from the rest of what the player could already be doing. Make the player feel like you really wanted to show them something fun earnestly, rather than for some monetary gain. We’re all here for the same thing, video games, and there’s few parts of the hobby that compare to just sharing it.

Buy The Witcher 3: Complete Edition for PS4, Xbox One, or PC.